


Hold the Shadows Close

by Aoida_blue



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, DCU - Comicverse
Genre: AU, Gen, Implied Violence, Possible Preslash, wing fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-17
Updated: 2012-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-02 01:44:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoida_blue/pseuds/Aoida_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where had the boy with the bravado and so so much heart go?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hold the Shadows Close

**Author's Note:**

> Cross posted from my Tumblr.

Jason’s rooms hung in a permanent night, suspended in a lightless eternity. Heavy, thick curtains hung tight over the full-length windows. Neither daylight nor moonlight ever slipped through their grasp. It was a heavy darkness, dark and still, and Dick could hear every breath he made, his very heartbeat twisting in his chest. His ears worked on override as he was denied his sight, throwing his own soft breathing into sharp relief.

 

It was clear, so horribly clear, why Jason had resorted to this. 

 

Distantly he could hear Jason. A harsh rasp through gritted teeth in the dark, like supressed laughter, _or tears_. He could hear Jason, could feel him in the weight in the bed beside him, but he couldn’t see him, couldn’t see his once so cheerful face. Dick stretched a hand, feeling like he was reaching into a void, and felt his fingertips brush the ridge of Jason’s cheek. He stroked the down turned cheek, mouth opening to say something, anything, but he was struck dumb again as his fingertips collected dirt on their path.

 

How long had it been since Jason had come out, gotten clean? Had he emerged even once?

 

Dick had to-

 

“He’s chosen a new heir, one that can fly.” Jason’s voice was low and sudden, catching in the middle of his words like a laugh, continuing like a conversation they hadn’t been having, “You should be with them. The Royal Wings, all together.”

 

A rush of air in the dark and Dick felt Jason’s hand knocking pushing his hand away. It was a weak push, a pathetic push. Nothing like the powerful swings he had possessed when Dick had left.

 

How much had he changed? Dick felt anger coil tight in his gut, hot and sudden flashing through him. Bruce should have told him sooner, should have sent for him when Jason went  _missing_ -

 

A wheeze echoed through the room, a choke, and the anger fled Dick instantly.

 

“Jay,” Dick’s words felt rough, tight and all too meaningless, “You  _are_  one of us, and I want to be where  _you_  are.”

 

Where had the boy with the bravado and so  _so_  much heart go?

 

He reached forward, imagining the shape of Jason’s slender shoulders near where his head had been. Another rush of air and Jason swiped again, slapping away hands that got close, skin on skin ringing sickly in the air. The bed jolted roughly as Jason’s weight left it sharply, and the wheeze turned into a laugh, fully fledged and  _hacking_  in Jason’s throat.

 

“I don’t need your  _pity_. I don’t need your bleeding heart.” Jason sniped back rackingly, voice following the pacing steps along the bed, “I’m  _nothing_  anymore. Nothing to Bruce, nothing to you, nothing to anyone. Get used to it. I have.”

 

“No.” Dick denied instantly, hot and fast from his mouth, hands fisting on the sheets, “Jay, you are not nothing. Bruce  _still_  loves you, I still-“

 

“I’m useless!” Jason’s overrode him, shrill with laughter, continuing, mocking laughter, “Is it too dark in here Dick or are you just  _stupid_. Lost your brains on your trips?”

 

Footfalls turned to running steps, headed toward the side of the room, toward the windows-

 

Dick rose quickly to his feet, heart beating out a drumroll against his rib cage. No _, no, no_. He followed the sounds as quick as he could, jolting and bumping against objects in his path, obstacles hidden the dark. Jason wouldn’t jump, he couldn’t jump. Dick wouldn’t let him, he couldn’t-

 

A blast of light flooded the room as Jason ripped the curtain open, iron rings screeching against the bars high above. Dick’s shut his eyes instinctively against the glare, light like daggers into his eyes, wings arching out unsteadily behind him. He forced them open a second later, taking a staggering step forward, blinking hard and fast trying to find Jason in the light and seeing nothing but white.

 

“Look at me Dick!” Jason yelled, voice breaking hard, “Take a good long look!”

 

Dick looked up, eyes watering with the brightness and he kept looking, kept looking until the light faded into shapes and the shapes faded into Jason-

 

_Jason_.

 

Dick saw Jason, for the first time since the kidnapping, saw Jason and the image burned into his retinas. He stood, bones jutting from his too skinny, too tall frame. He held his back to Dick exposing his wings-

 

No.

 

_No_ , what should have been his wings.

 

There should have been his…but all there was… was  _mutilation_.

 

When Dick had left on a voyage with his teammates, carving his own path far from their adoptive father, Jason had possessed such strong long wings. Wings like eagles of old, pure white wings streaked with a royal red down the eye feathers and along the base. Jason was dangerously fast in the skies, moving with a grace all of his own, wholly unlike Dick’s own arching acrobatics.  Dick had left secure in his new found freedom, Jason’s teasing hit and curving smirk guiding him onward. No one could have taken up the post as heir as well. None like the new, fast, prince.

 

But.

 

Now.

 

Where there had been two proud wings, jutting from Jason’s back, there was nothing but  _carnage_.

 

Like it too was in grief, Jason’s right wing hung sadly down. Barely a feather nor wing bone remained on the wing, leaving it a stark white stick that angled too sharply to the ground. But it was a wholly different story on Jason’s left side. Almost the whole wing had been taken, all but the very corner closet to Jason’s back. All that remained was a tattered, charred useless stump, twitching its feathers agitatedly under Dick’s gaze.

 

It moved. The right one didn’t.

 

Sickness clogged Dick’s throat.

 

“ _Little wing_.” The old name slipped out, distraught on Dick’s lips and he knew the moment he said it was stupid.

 

Jason flinched around as if he’d been struck, hiding all but the longest bone wing that drifted behind. His face twisted in a dark scowl, only enhanced with the long malnutrition hollows of his face.

 

“No. Dick.” Jason corrected angrily, all laughter dried away, all mockery gone now, “Not any more. Call me  _Stumpie_.”

 

He was angry, shuddering with it before Dick’s very eyes. He blamed himself with his deriding words, he blamed Dick with the accusation in his eyes, he blamed and blamed….

 

So angry, eyes flashing like fire when Dick stepped forward but the promise of danger was nothing, not when Jason stood like a shadow in the light.

 

“That doesn’t matter.” Dick found the words within him, strong, confident and  _why hadn’t Bruce done this earlier_ , “Jason it  _doesn’t_  matter.”

 

Somewhere along the line, tears started to burn down Jason’s cheeks. They curved tracing the all too pale, all too prominent ridges on Jason’s face, sinking down into the sunken shadows.  Jason hadn’t appeared to notice them, still shaking, still glaring, hot and angry.

 

“Jason you’re more than that.” Dick said again, firm and slow.

 

Projecting his moves, letting Jason see every tell, Dick placed his hands on his Jason’s shoulders. He let his hands rest there, ignoring the way Jason flinched, the way his eyes widened, the way he flinched hard and he ignored the hands that came out to hit at him, bat him away. Jason was weak, so weak and Dick barely felt him as he softly pulled Jason into a hug. He was nothing but a shuddering mess of jutting bones, all to sharp, muscle loss never more telling but Dick did nothing but hold him closer arms wrapping around him, avoiding the tattered remains of his wings.

 

Dick’s own wings stretched out behind him, curling as far as they could forward, as they too could shelter Jason, kept him safe, protected.

 

But the damage was already done. Dick shut his eyes firmly, tucking his head in the jut of Jason’s shoulder, feeling the burn of building tears behind his eyes.

 

“Jason it doesn’t matter.” Dick muttered the words like a prayer, the full force of his belief behind it.

 

Still angry, still hurting, Jason thrashed against him, barely moving in Dick’s hold. He was taller, yes, so much  _taller_  since Dick had left but he mass was not there, nothing to back up his new height. Jason knew he was outmatched, of course he did, but this wasn’t about logic. Jason’s thrashing descended slowly back into shuddering, this wasn’t about that at all.

 

“I’m clipped, Dick.” Jason voice wavered with so much hate, hand that been battering Dick’s chest curling to fist in his shirt, “I’m  _clipped_.”

 

Like the words drained the fight out of him, the truth scaring him, Jason stopped fighting. Instead he grasped with weak hands and shaking arms, curling tight against him. He shrunk down, almost into that small boy Dick had met so long ago. He shivered, pushing tight against Dick as if he wanted to disappear into him, legs nearly giving out. Dick held onto him tighter, holding him up, never going to let him go.

 

“Its okay.” Dick soothed words feeling so useless, so flimsy, rubbing small circles into Jason’s back, “Its okay, I’ve got you.”

 

Where Jason had pressed his head against his chest, Dick’s shirt grew wet.

 

“I’m clipped.” Jason bit out, voice shattered, “It’ll never be okay.”

 

The first hot tear rolled down Dick’s cheek. He let it, unwilling to let go of Jason for a moment, pressing his face into Jason’s hair, trying to curl around him.

 

He wanted to take the pain away, he wanted to give Jason back his old strength, his old laugh. He wanted to give Jason back his  _wings_.

 

Dick couldn’t.. he couldn’t, so he held Jason tighter.

 

It was a poor compromise.

 

“It will.” Dick murmured softly, fervently, “It will Jay, I promise you.”

 

“No.” Jason hiccupped, roughly, “It won’t.”

 

It would. Dick swore it to himself; he’d prove it to Jason if he didn’t believe it. It would get better.

 

_It had to._


End file.
